Thursday, July 4, 2013

Our Declaration of Dependence - 4th of July as seen through Luke 10.1-9

Gospel Passage Luke 10.1-9

DECLARATION OF DEPENDENCE

What a way to
begin Independence Day. “I am sending you like lambs
among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals. Eat what is placed
before you.” What? So much for Good News!

And these words
of Jesus are especially bothersome today
for they come to us on Independence Day!
Yet these words imply a radical dependence! A total reliance on God and
one another, for he sends the disciples out two by two.

But I ask are we
really independent or do we recognize our dependence upon God? Are we Americans
first, then followers of the Gospel? Which messengers are we following? FOX News, CNN,
MSNBC, the National Enquirer or Cosmopolitan – or Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?

The world says
that the more we have, then the better off we are! The world says to consume
and use whatever we can to make a name for ourselves. If I can just get that
new car or a bigger house or whatever it is, then I’ll be somebody!

Advertisers
spend billions of dollars every year telling us that we need their products to
make us acceptable and help us achieve more! Right? Isn’t that right?

But Jesus tells
us today to live simply and not be weighed down with all that extra stuff and
not allow our possessions to possess us!
So maybe that’s the whole point of the gospel message – that we have
become so independent-minded, that we are actually too dependent upon the wrong
things and not dependent enough on God.

Christ commands
us to live radically simple lives, relying less on things, and relying more on Him
and one another; not asserting so much our independence as our interdependence
upon one another.

This means that
we cannot live just as Americans or citizens of the U.S., though that we are, but our worldview must be focused on the Cross
of Christ! Christ’s worldview turns the world’s view upside down.

So I ask are we Catholics first, then Americans, or have we allowed
American values to dictate what parts of the gospel we like and discard what
doesn’t seem to fit our political agenda?

Christ calls all
people to himself. And so has the United States in her history.

Can we imagine what it would be to leave everything we know,
leaving our native land and immigrating here with a different language? The people that
made the journey to the United States often had little more than a dream in
their heart and a hole in their pocket. Many were literally penniless, having
sold all they had to simply purchase the ticket to sail on the boat, and with
no real guarantee they would be granted entry or survive in the New World.

And
these exiles, arriving here tattered and torn, with a few words of English, set
out to begin a new life. Many of these exiles had nothing to speak of, no money
bag, no extra pair of shoes, but only the clothes on their backs. And for many
the first sight they beheld upon arriving here was the Statue of Liberty.

The image that
comes to mind for many of us on this Independence Day weekend is the Statue of Liberty, a universal symbol
of freedom and democracy.

The bronze
plaque on the Statue of Liberty’s giant pedestal calls her theMother
of Exiles, from the poem by Emma Lazarus.

How many souls long to belong, long for welcome
in this world of ours, and imagine all those who journeyed here to the U.S.,
whose first sight was the Mother of Exiles, Lady Liberty.

Interestingly, the name "Mother of Exiles" was never taken up as
the Statue of Liberty’s name, even though it is engraved in bronze. Yet as
Catholics our Blessed Mother and Mother Church herself have both been called
“Mother of Exiles”. And isn’t this the hope of all exiles, that they will find
welcome and rest and a home?

Yet in a way, as Catholics, we are exiles in this world. If we live by
gospel values, we may well be exiled by our neighbors or even our friends. Some
may say of us that we’ve gone too far with our faith in this Jesus business,
that we are unpatriotic to the point where we place gospel values above
American values.

It is certainly an interesting thought to imagine that the
Statue of Liberty is calling us to be better Americans and in the process
better Christian, better Catholics.

So if we are marked by the sign of the cross, then we can expect suffering,
rejections, and crucifixion. Not everyone can or will accept the gospel cross.
We will be judged as fools for Christ.
We will be going against the popular opinion. Yet we recognize that Only in God is our soul
at rest; our true fulfillment will not be in any party, except the party of
Christ. Our independence day is celebrated on Good Friday. St. Paul encourages
us to find our freedom in the cross of Christ.

Finding rest in Christ, recognizing His Mother as our Mother, and knowing
that the Church herself is the Mother of Exiles, is truly liberating! The irony
of today is that our true independence is found in our dependence upon God,
Christ,

Mary, the Church, indeed our dependence upon one another.

There is no such thing as a lone Christian. We are in
this together. And just as Jesus
instructed his disciples, he continues to instruct us that we must trust in God
for our defense and depend upon the hospitality of others for our well being. And
this is what we celebrate today: our Dependence upon God
and dependence upon one another.Godaloneisenough.

But if God alone is too
much for our neighbors or family to handle, if believing in Christ and
following the gospel somehow makes us less patriotic than other Americans, then
let us repeat the words of Patrick Henry: “If this be treason, let us make the most of it!”

About Me

John William McMullen has written and taught for over twenty years. He is the author of several books: The Miracle of Stalag 8A - Beauty Beyond the Horror; The Last Blackrobe of Indiana and the Potawatomi Trail of Death; Roman: Unparalleled Outrage; Poor Souls; and Eugene & the Haunted Train Bridge. He is a Philosophy Professor, Theologian, and Historian. McMullen resides in Evansville, Indiana, with his wife and children.